rland.

From one of the seafaring customers with whom I began to chat, I learned
that the keeper of the place was named Leopold Bramberger, and that he
had been established in that little river-side hostelry rather more than
a year, and was now a well-known and more or less respected inhabitant
of the borough of Maldon. He had made a little money--so it was
generally understood--in the course of some years' service at the
Carlton Hotel in London as waiter. And a good waiter he certainly was,
as many people living in that part of the country could testify; since
he found time to go out as "an extra hand" to many a dinner-party; his
services being much appreciated and bringing him in quite a comfortable
little addition to what he made by the sale of drink down by the
Blackwater. But he did not seem very anxious to talk with his
compatriot; indeed, so frequent were the demands made for "another pot
of four 'arf," "two of gin 'ot," "another glass of Scotch," and other
delectable beverages, that he and his better half had all they could do
to grapple with the wants of their customers.

From the conversation about us we gathered that the dead man, though
previously somewhat abstemious, had lately become rather a constant
frequenter of the "Goat and Binnacle," and though no one had seen him
actually drunk, there were not a few who could testify to having seen
him in a state very nearly approaching, in their opinion, to
"half-seas-over."

"Well, I' give suthing to lay my 'ands on the blackguard as 'as done for
pore Jim," remarked a burly longshoreman to his neighbour. "'E'd never
done no one a bad turn, as I knows on, and a better feller there wasn't
between 'ere an' 'Arwich."

"No there wasn't," came quite a chorus. Jim Pavely, whatever his
misfortunes, was evidently a favourite.

"And no one wouldn't have any idea of robbin' pore Jim," interposed
another customer; "every one knows that there's bin nothin' on 'im wuth
stealin' this many a day--pore chap."

"Except that forty-nine pound," remarked the German landlord, in very
good English.

"As for that," exclaimed a little man sitting in the chimney-corner, "I
see Belton, the constable, as I were a-coming down here a quarter of an
hour ago, an' he says as how there wasn't no signs of any attempt at
robbery. Jim had his old five-bob watch in 'is pocket, not worth
pawnin'; the sovereigns and some silver were in his trousers."

"Ah! That's the mystery!" exclaimed more t